Brown on White House vs. Blanco: "A chance to rub her nose in it"

Michael Brown, the hapless FEMA director during Katrina, is making headlines with a new charge, reported by AP and the Baton Rouge Advocate:

Brown, speaking at the Metropolitan College of New York, said he had recommended to President Bush that all 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast affected by the powerful hurricane be federalized — a term Brown explained meant placing the federal government in charge of all agencies responding to the disaster. “Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking, ‘We had to federalize Louisiana because she’s a white, female Democratic governor, and we have a chance to rub her nose in it,”’ Brown said, without naming names. “‘We can’t do it to Haley (Barbour) because Haley’s a white male Republican governor. And we can’t do a thing to him. So we’re just gonna federalize Louisiana.”

At the Breaking Point

Nolalily writes at dKos that "Katrina ain't over. It's still there."

We're teetering on all out anarchy. Seriously. Our murder rate has soared due to many, many thugs (teens and young adults mostly) who have returned to the city without their parents.

Central City (which is the area which is, well, central in the city) has been completely empty since Katrina. Many of these thugs are squatting in abandoned houses. They are engaged in an all out drug war with rivals from New Orleans but worse, other parts of the country who were never here before.

Addicts and punks are robbing people in the populated parts when they need money. This brings crime into our backyard which is a small backyard to begin with.

Yesterday morning, around 5:30am, a doctor and his wife were shot in their home in the Marigny. They were a young couple with a 2-year old son. The husband had started a clinic for the poor and his wife, a Harvard graduate, was a filmmaker. Both were community activists, liberal and well-loved. He played in a band. She died. He collapsed in the doorway, after he was shot, holding his son in his arms. They were quite liberal and open.

Today, many of us are attending meetings concerning the city's welfare and there is a march on city hall planned for this Thursday.